Jimmy Stewart

Jimmy Stewart, the very embodiment of small-town values on the big screen, has given something back to his home town. Stewart, who died July 2 at 89, left $375,000 to the Greater Indiana Endowment to use however it likes. "Just as Jimmy Stewart will live on in his great films, so will his legacy live on, doing substantial good in Indiana (western Pennsylvania) year after year," said the Rev. Allan Campbell, chief executive of the endowment. Stewart quietly donated $20,000 in 1991 to help start the endowment, which distributes about $15,000 a year to shelters for the homeless, recreation programs and various other causes in Indiana.

At the heart of the film comedy, "Harvey," is a 6 foot invisible rabbit. Harvey is a "pooka. " A pooka, as we find out, is a "benign but mischievous creature who is very fond of rumpots and crackpots" and who "appears here and there, now and then, to this one and that one. " The main character of this film is not the trickster Harvey, but Elwood P. Dowd, inspiringly played by Jimmy Stewart. Elwood goes through life gently and serenely if not also absent-mindedly. He passes his days sitting in bars, handing out his card, , striking up conversations and inviting strangers to his home for dinner; he occasionally dispenses some wonderful words of wisdom.

Six very long marriages (through 2001) Walter Cronkite and wife Betsy: married 61 years Bud Abbott and wife Betty: married 55 years Monty Hall and wife Marilyn: married 54 years Jimmy Stewart and wife Gloria: married 45 years World Features Syndicate

Just once in this health care debate I'd like to hear the middle class, retirees and the poor complain about the insurance CEOs' salaries, bonuses and perks. If they have to increase premiums, raise deductibles or drop coverage, they're going to get theirs and sleep good at night. People who don't have insurance, including illegal immigrants, have their health care provider -- the emergency room. Who do you think pays for those services? The people who buy insurance and the good old taxpayer.

A bronze plaque honoring Jimmy Stewart was unveiled Wednesday at Los Angeles' Griffith Park, where the late actor sponsored an annual relay marathon for charity. Two of Stewart's three children were among the 75 people gathered for the ceremony, on which would have been their father's 90th birthday. Stewart, the star of "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," died last July. A flock of white doves was released after the plaque was unveiled atop a rock monument surrounded by flowers.

More than 800 people attended a charity birthday bash Saturday in Beverly Hills for Jimmy Stewart, but the guest of honor stayed home. Stewart, who turned 85 on Thursday, heeded doctor's advice and avoided the excitement, said his wife, Gloria. Former President Reagan presented Stewart with St. John's Hospital and Health Center's first Caritas Award for Stewart's 40 years of charitable work on behalf of the Santa Monica hospital. Proceeds from the dinner -- tickets sold for $500, $250 and $150 apiece -- will be used to buy a fetal monitoring system for St. John's, where Stewart was treated about two months ago for an irregular heartbeat.

Close your eyes and you'll be hard-pressed to know who's on stage. Is it Sean Connery? Jack Nicholson? Could it be Richard "I am NOT a crook" Nixon? Johnny Carson? George Burns? Kermit the Frog? No, it's just Rich Little -- and he's bringing his latest stand-up show, "Will the Real Rich Little Please Stand Up?" to Easton's State Theatre at 8 p.m. Saturday for an evening of mimicry and mockery. It should be a full evening as the 66-year-old comic draws on his more than 200-voice repertoire, including Jimmy Stewart, which many consider to be one of his most beloved.

It was a wonderful reunion of the cast of the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life," even though star Jimmy Stewart couldn't attend the event in his western Pennsylvania hometown of Indiana. Karolyn Grimes Wilkerson, who as a child played Zuzu Bailey, said she remembers the thrill of riding on Stewart's back as he ran downstairs and around the Christmas tree at the end of the three-hanky movie. "I was hanging on for dear life," she said. Health problems kept the 85-year-old Stewart from attending Saturday's reunion, part of the city's annual "It's A Wonderful Life" celebration.

To the Editor: As an admirer of vintage movies I find the "Bausch collectible car caper" pregnant with comedic possibilities, more ludicrous than lurid. It might be type casting to give the role of the political boss who can't remember where he parked his Model-T to Edward Everett Horton rather than to Edward Arnold. The script will need some work to build up the Carol Wickkiser part beyond a supporting role so that my favorite comedienne, Jean Arthur, can be cast. We'd have to write a big speech for Jimmy Stewart in the Donald Miller part.

AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE COLON MOVIE FILM FOR THEATERS Everyone's favorite walking, talking fast-food action heroes Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad make their way to the big screen in this (barely) feature-length version of the cult Adult Swim series. Fans will be happy to know that its surreal sense of humor has been kept intact: the movie is filled with random gags, absurd non-sequiturs and general craziness. The barely-there plot involves the Aqua Teens' attempts to stop an exercise machine from conquering the planet.

By Amy Longsdorf Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | January 18, 2007

Even dressed down in a Howard's Motors T-shirt and blue jeans, as he prepares to tout his latest movie, "The Good German," George Clooney looks like he just walked off the set of a vintage 1940s movie. At 45, the actor is one of the only modern performers who could conceivably stand should-to-shoulder with icons such as Cary Grant, Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart. Tell People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive twice over that he reminds you of yet another Hollywood legend and before you can get the words out of your mouth, he says, "Kate Hepburn?

By Amy Longsdorf Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | August 17, 2006

One of Hollywood's perennial good guys, Jimmy Stewart wasn't just an icon of boy-next-store decency but also a fine actor capable of digging deep into the psyche of troubled souls. The "James Stewart Signature Collection" (2006, Warner, unrated, $50) boasts the rawest performance of his career. In "The Naked Spur" (1953), a jittery horse opera from Anthony Mann, Stewart plays a haunted bounty hunter determined to put a noose around the neck of a wily killer (Robert Ryan). As one critic noted, "Only Stewart could have pulled off a crying scene in a Western."

"My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra" has 57 of the nearly 1,400 songs recorded by the Chairman of the Board. Four singers and three instrumentalists perform medleys for losers, big flirts, survivors and so on. Below is a list of intriguing numbers from the revue, arranged by the year Sinatra first put them on vinyl. Geoff Gehman "I'll Be Seeing You" (1940): Initially recorded with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Sinatra's first true hit didn't become a hit until it was re-released in 1944.

Close your eyes and you'll be hard-pressed to know who's on stage. Is it Sean Connery? Jack Nicholson? Could it be Richard "I am NOT a crook" Nixon? Johnny Carson? George Burns? Kermit the Frog? No, it's just Rich Little -- and he's bringing his latest stand-up show, "Will the Real Rich Little Please Stand Up?" to Easton's State Theatre at 8 p.m. Saturday for an evening of mimicry and mockery. It should be a full evening as the 66-year-old comic draws on his more than 200-voice repertoire, including Jimmy Stewart, which many consider to be one of his most beloved.

By Amy Longsdorf Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | January 22, 2004

In "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!," which opens Friday, Kate Bosworth and Topher Grace play childhood buddies who discover they're in love only after she's nearly wooed away by a big-time movie star. Bosworth, 20, and Grace, 25, didn't have to work too hard to accomplish the we're-from-the-same-small-town vibe. Both actors grew up in the tiny hamlet of Darien, Conn. "I remember she was on this ski trip that I chaperoned once," says Grace over the telephone from Los Angeles. "And I think she played on my sister's soccer team."

Just once in this health care debate I'd like to hear the middle class, retirees and the poor complain about the insurance CEOs' salaries, bonuses and perks. If they have to increase premiums, raise deductibles or drop coverage, they're going to get theirs and sleep good at night. People who don't have insurance, including illegal immigrants, have their health care provider -- the emergency room. Who do you think pays for those services? The people who buy insurance and the good old taxpayer.

by JOHN FLAUTZ (A free-lance story for The Morning Call) | December 10, 1998

It began as a Hungarian play about timid romance among the humble in the economically wary Great Depression, when retail clerks -- at least Hungarian retail clerks --bowed and scraped and dressed in morning coats like footmen at an Esterhazy castle even if their weekly salaries barely covered dry cleaning and the occasional dumpling. It has been a Jimmy Stewart movie (the Christmas season does scare up memories of Jimmy Stewart movies, doesn't it?) and is about to be a Tom Hanks/ Meg Ryan movie called "You've Got Mail."

Katharine Hepburn, who died on Sunday at age 96, was an American original. The actress grew up in a wealthy family and recognized that having money spared her from doing seamy things early in her career. In fact, money that was hers or from men close to her enabled her to defy the Hollywood studio system. Thanks to her one-time lover Howard Hughes, she owned the rights to one of her most famous movies, "The Philadelphia Story," in 1940. That enabled her to choose the cast, and she played pretty much played herself opposite Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart.

Six very long marriages (through 2001) Walter Cronkite and wife Betsy: married 61 years Bud Abbott and wife Betty: married 55 years Monty Hall and wife Marilyn: married 54 years Jimmy Stewart and wife Gloria: married 45 years World Features Syndicate